In a commentary segment for Tom Joyner’s Thursday radio show, Don Lemon, host of “CNN Tonight” reacted to comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s recent series of remarks decrying political correctness and how the struggle not to offend people has hampered his and other comics’ abilities to perform.

Lemon said he was finding it necessary to walk that fine line in order to avoid being called “racist, bigots, stupid, dumb, sell outs” and named a group of people in particular who were the most likely to use those labels: liberals and progressives.

“After almost 25 years in the news business, you know who is the most easily offended and the least tolerant: Liberals and progressive – because many of them don’t really want to hear anyone else’s opinion but their own,” Lemon said.“Here’s a tip, if you only agree with people who hold your same political affiliation or who are of your particular race, gender or ethnicity, you are part of the political correctness run amuck problem. You are actually thwarting progress instead of advancing.”

(h/t Mediaite)

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

_________________The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.- misattributed to Alexis De Tocqueville

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Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2008 4:26 pmPosts: 3581Location: not the end of the world but you can see it from hereReputation points: 8457

I guess you need to check out Jim Gaffigan's Facebook page. He was on the Glenn Beck radio show yesterday and I guess his Facebook page has been deluged with people upset about, going to boycott his shows, etc, but the Liberals are the tolerant ones right.

_________________Texas, where we have the death penalty and aren't afraid to use it! Cruz 2020!!

So a comedian talks to a journalist and wonders what’s the deal with political correctness.

“That’s not funny!” screams the politically correct as they demand the comic keep his thoughts to himself.

The lack of tolerance here serves as the punchline.

When Jerry Seinfeld told an ESPN reporter last week that he’s troubled by how insufferably PC college campuses have become, it seemed like he was stating a matter of fact.

“I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC.’”

“They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist;’ ‘That’s sexist;’ ‘That’s prejudice.’ They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

Later in an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” the comedy legend said the whole ideology creeped him out.

To anyone who has heard of a “safe space” and is aware of the treatment that right-leaning speakers and groups face at a modern university, Seinfeld’s comments state something so obvious that he might as well have followed up with, “Did you know the sky is blue?” (RELATED: Liberal Students Are Terrifying Their Own Professors)

But for such a basic observation, the response from left-wing outlets bordered on near frenzy, proving that progressives might live in a Bizarro World free of self-awareness.

Salon took time away from counting every injustice the Duggars have committed against mankind to devote all of its hatred against Seinfeld. The Huffington Post published a letter from a politically-correct college student lecturing the famous comedian on what it takes to make “provocative” humor. The prolific Amanda Marcotte claimed that the comic was just looking for an excuse to make up for being a “second-rate hack.”

Clearly, the underlying presumption of all the outrage is that Jerry needs to start kowtowing to the standards of political correctness.

The best articulated statement of this belief is found (surprise!) in the college student’s letter.

Anthony Berteaux argues that college students — while being more “sensitive to issues of race and gender politics” — still love offensive humor. They just demand that it have a progressive message.

Berteaux cites an Amy Schumer sketch that plays up the supposed idea that young high school and college men are raping women left and right (even though the data paints a different picture). The joke is designed to convey that this is a real problem and men need to be shamed for it — a popular notion on the left and in line with the rape culture narrative.

The young student also upholds a Louis C.K. stand-up bit that illustrates the concept of white privilege as a model for how provocative comedy should work.

To recap, comedy can be offensive as long as it pushes false statistics about rape and white privilege shaming. While Berteaux instructs Seinfeld and other comics to “offend the fuck out of college students,” what he’s really saying is that comics should reinforce progressive notions with dick jokes.

The student’s main point is that comedy should have an “underlying message,” but it’s clear that that message has to come from a left-wing perspective. Which, crazily enough, exactly confirms Seinfeld’s beef with politically correct students.

They only want comedy that confirms their own biases. They don’t want to hear jokes that could be conservative in nature or actually offend the fuck out of them. As we all know, college kids these days could be traumatized for life if they get offended.

The comedy — and culture in general — that Berteaux wants is one suitable for a safe space. That sounds awfully unprovocative.

Comedy, like all art forms, requires freedom on the part of performers to express themselves. The limits imposed on comedians if they come before a campus audience restricts them in what they can say and bowdlerizes their material. It’s essentially censorship. If you care about your craft and you know that it would offend the precious ears of the stereotypical collegian, wouldn’t you follow the lead of Seinfeld and Chris Rock and say no to university crowds?

One of Seinfeld’s critics, Dean Obeidallah, did concede that students today are too sensitive, but insisted that it is right for them to demand comedy that conforms to their sensibilities.

I disagree.

Colleges are supposed to be places where the marketplace of ideas can flourish and young minds can come in contact with a host of different ideas and a myriad viewpoints. Instead, the modern university has turned into an incubator of New Puritanism — with all the ideological dogmatism and enforced conformity that comes with it. (RELATED: The Puritans Behind Jennerpalooza)

This mindset does not carry over well into the real world. That’s why it do a world of good for kids these days to expose themselves to viewpoints that genuinely offend them.

At the least, they could get the message that not everyone thinks like an Amy Schumer-loving, Salon-reading, patriarchy-protesting college student.

Multiple links within the original linked article.

_________________The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.- misattributed to Alexis De Tocqueville

No representations made as to the accuracy of info in posted news articles or links

by DAVID FRENCH September 14, 2015 1:25 PM @DAVIDAFRENCH This Thursday, the University of California Board of Regents is set to consider adopting a new policy that would establish a “right” to be “free from acts and expressions of intolerance” on campus. The policy would prohibit, among other things, “hate speech [and] derogatory language reflecting stereotypes or prejudice.” It would also single out specific forms of expression, including “Depicting or articulating a view of ethnic or racial groups as less ambitious, less hardworking or talented, or more threatening than other groups” and “questioning a student’s fitness for a leadership role or whether the student should be a member of the campus community on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship, sex, or sexual orientation.”

As UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh notes, the policy would officially condemn anyone who advocates against illegal aliens serving as student members of the California Board of Regents. It would also condemn, as Volokh puts it, “Articulating a view that there are cultural (or even biological) differences between ethnic and racial groups in various fields . . . without regard to the arguments for or against the particular assertion.” More ominous still, the proposed policy declares that “the University will respond promptly and effectively to reports of intolerant behavior and treat them as opportunities to reinforce the University’s Principles Against Intolerance.”

As my colleague Charlie Cooke observed to me today, liberals are less than one week removed from furious and sanctimonious invocations of the “rule of law” in support of their demands that Kim Davis issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples. Where is the Left’s love for the rule of law on campus? While there is not (yet) any specific federal court order striking down the proposed University of California policy, its language violates the terms of every federal court decision evaluating campus speech codes anywhere in the U.S., including in California. Simply put, no federal court has ever upheld such sweeping prohibitions on speech.

Let’s take California. In 2007 San Francisco State University put its chapter of the College Republicans on trial for desecrating the name of Allah. At an anti-terrorism rally, members of the College Republicans stomped on paper representations of the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, which contain the name “Allah” written in Arabic script. Bear in mind, this is a school where activists routinely burn or otherwise desecrate the American flag. Students charged the College Republicans with “attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment” and “actions of incivility.”

The mode of communication that the plaintiffs chose was controversial. To many in the audience, it seemed disrespectful and offensive. But it is these very characteristics that were critical to its effectiveness. A timid, tepid articulation of concern about terrorism likely would have been largely ignored — and certainly would not have provoked the discussion and debate that this rally precipitated.

This is exactly right, and it’s consistent with similar court rulings in Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia — including rulings that struck down university policies that banned “acts of intolerance” and even policies that banned speech that had the “purpose” of creating a “hostile” environment. It is, of course, also worth noting that the Supreme Court has categorically rejected the notion that the state may prohibit so-called “hate speech.”

Fully aware of the law, universities try subtle means of enforcing speech codes while insulating themselves from judicial review. Such codes will often impose explicit, unconstitutional speech restrictions at the same time that they claim these restrictions are not intended to violate the First Amendment. The University of California’s proposed policy is no exception. It claims (hilariously) that it is not intended to be used as a basis for discipline or to suppress “educational, political, artistic, or literary expression of students in classrooms and public forums that is protected by academic freedom or free speech principles.” Yet the entire policy suppresses expression protected by free-speech principles.

California State University lawyers tried this same argument in 2007. The court was not impressed:

What path is a college student who faces this regulatory situation most likely to follow? Is she more likely to feel that she should heed the relatively specific proscriptions of the Code that are set forth in words she thinks she understands, or is she more likely to feel that she can engage in conduct that violates those proscriptions (and thus is risky and likely controversial) in the hope that the powers-that-be will agree, after the fact, that the course of action she chose was protected by the First Amendment?

The University of California is, sadly, not an outlier in its flagrantly illegal attempts to police speech. Our colleges and universities are in the midst of a decades-long wave of lawlessness. As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has documented, more than 55 percent of American colleges and universities maintain at least one policy that substantially restricts constitutionally protected speech. Meanwhile, the systematic enforcement of an utterly lawless Obama-administration policy requiring colleges to prosecute sexual-assault allegations on campus, with a low standard of proof and minimal due-process protections for accused students, continues apace.

Colleges suppress free speech, ruin innocent students’ lives, and raise a generation of victim-focused social -ustice warriors who are busy trying to close the marketplace of ideas. And they do it all in clear and knowing violation of the supreme law of the land. Some would call that a conspiracy to deprive students of their constitutional rights. I just call it American higher education.

— David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National Review.

_________________The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.- misattributed to Alexis De Tocqueville

No representations made as to the accuracy of info in posted news articles or links

This chick was literally hounded out of UCLA. Sure, she is generalizing but she at least has a valid point about adoption of host country social norms and, I'm sorry, but the "Ohhh. Ching chong ling long ting tong" bit is just funny.

There was no need for the stupid limp-dick Chancellor to publicly get involved. Shit. It's insane. Death threats? Harrassment of her family?

Quote:

Did UCLA and NYT Overreact to Student's "Asians in the Library" Video?

Just a little over a week ago, Alexandra Wallace, a UCLA college student, posted a short, 3-minute video blog on YouTube that would end up changing her life. In the video, the self-described "polite, nice American girl," a junior political science major, ranted about the customs and manners of the "hordes of Asians" on campus. Her main gripe was with Asians talking on cell phones in the library during finals period -- some apparently to see if relatives survived the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In the most offensive part of the video, Wallace used a mock Asian accent and ethnic slur to portray her version of what Asian students said on their cellphones in the UCLA library: "Ohhh. Ching chong ling long ting tong."

The incendiary video -- which Wallace titled "Asians in the Library" -- soon went viral on YouTube and Facebook, drawing a half million views the weekend it was posted. Other UCLA students, including Asian American students, soon posted response videos on YouTube -- a number quite effectively parodying the female student's offensive video and its use of dubious Asian stereotypes and slurs. After the video went viral, within a few short days, Wallace quickly removed it from YouTube. According to the UCLA Bruin newspaper, she called campus police to report that she had received death threats. Also, the next day, she sent the following apology to the school newspaper:

Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate. I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I'd like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand.

But it was too late. Others had copied the video and reposted it on YouTube (nevermind the potential copyright infringement, though fair use is a possible defense). Later that Monday after the original video was posted, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block got into the action and posted an official video for UCLA to state that he was appalled by the student's video (though he did not identify her by name, probably out of concern for discreteness) and called for greater civility in discourse on campus.

During the week, and amidst the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters in Japan, national media attention grew over the UCLA student's video. By week's end, The New York Times -- amazingly -- devoted a full editorial weighing in on the incident. On that same day, Wallace issued another apology through the school newspaper and announced that she would no longer attend UCLA out of concerns for her personal safety.

In an attempt to produce a humorous YouTube video, I have offended the UCLA community and the entire Asian culture. I am truly sorry for the hurtful words I said and the pain it caused to anyone who watched the video. Especially in the wake of the ongoing disaster in Japan, I would do anything to take back my insensitive words. I could write apology letters all day and night, but I know they wouldn't erase the video from your memory, nor would they act to reverse my inappropriate action.

I made a mistake. My mistake, however, has lead to the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats, and being ostracized from an entire community. Accordingly, for personal safety reasons, I have chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA.

On that same day, perhaps no solace to Wallace, according to the school paper, UCLA announced that she would not be subject to disciplinary action because her video did not violate the school's code of conduct and was protected free speech.

So what lessons can we draw from this entire affair? Certainly, one important lesson is that negative stereotypes of Asians and use of mocking Asian accents and ethnic slurs are wrong, but are still all too common in the U.S. Like many others, I experienced these hurtful slights first-hand while growing up in the U.S. Although the U.S. has come a long way in race relations, we still have a ways to go.

What Wallace said in mock Asian accent last week was not too different from what Shaquille O'Neal, then playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, first said about Yao Ming: "Tell Yao Ming, 'ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'" (O'Neal later apologized to Yao, and the two would eventually show a great deal of mutual respect in head-to-head battles on the court.) But Shaq's not the only celebrity to use the Asian slur -- Stephen Colbert, Rush Limbaugh, and Rosie O'Donnell have, too, even more recently. Hopefully, from this incident, greater public attention -- and condemnation -- will be raised on the use of Asian slurs and mock Asian accents.

Another lesson to draw, however, is the need for proportionality, particularly in the age of the Internet in which anything and everything can go viral. The Internet doesn't know proportionality, boundaries, or restraint. And it never forgets. There's a good chance Alexandra Wallace's 3-minute video will remain forever on YouTube -- portraying her in a very negative light. The New York Times editorial will likely be there, too. While Wallace has no one to blame for the notoriety from her offensive video except herself, we do have to remember that she is a college student. There's perhaps no other population that is as prone to saying or doing inappropriate or embarrassing things as college students. Yet, at the same time, college students probably have one of the greatest opportunities for personal growth, learning, and expanding their horizons. And colleges have a responsibility to educate their students, no matter how foolish at times they may be. It would be a pity if an institution as great as UCLA could not figure out a way to reach out to Alexandra Wallace and its entire student body, in order to make this unfortunate incident, to borrow President Obama's apt phrase, a teachable moment.

_________________I haven't figured out how to the block thingy works but if anyone alters my posts I will become really, really angry and throw monkey poop out of my cage.

It's interesting isn't it, in the 90s everybody, EVERYBODY on the internet used a pseudonym. I recall that giving out your real name was considered pretty taboo. Privacy was a big deal, back in the days when nerds routinely had their PGP keys up. And indeed, if you look at people on this forum, we pretty much all have pseudonyms.

There was a damn good reason for it too, as Alexandra Wallace found out.

_________________“The gap in EU finances arising from the United Kingdom’s withdrawal and from the financing needs of new priorities need to be clearly acknowledged.” - Mario Monti

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